A Little Bit Of Exercise At Last

Thursday 21 December

The clock in our room is more than twenty minutes fast, so we were relieved to find we had woken just before nine, and still had time to make breakfast comfortably. All this doing nothing definitely makes you tired. It was raining quite hard by the time we had finished breakfast, so I blogged while Colin listened to his book again (he had got to an exciting part), sitting on our verandah. It is still warm – top twenties – and quite humid.

By 11.15 though, the rain had stopped so we went to see what the “activities walk” was all about. We were the only takers, so our guide, Toku, grabbed a towel (? – in case it rained again?) and we set off up the road The walk took us along one of the only backroads on the island, where there were many smart houses, with huge grassed gardens growing coconuts, paw paw and nonia - a cream, knobbly, lemon-sized fruit that smelt horrible. Inside it was a bit like a passion fruit – all pips - but apparently it has amazing health properties in the juice. Toku told us that it makes you ill, but is very good for digestive and colonic problems and many of the older Polynesian folk take a dose every day! (think we’ll give this one a miss). There were also swampy fields growing taro, which we had first seen in the rice paddies in China – I remembered it tasted a bit like an overcooked roasted chestnut, all dry and powdery. Over here they eat it like a potato – roasted, mashed or chipped. Several people were out tidying their plots ready for the Christmas family get-together. The island has been subdivided between the indigenous families, and they lease plots to others, for a maximum of sixty years, after which it has to be returned to the family. When someone dies, they are buried in a small cemetery on their own land. We saw many large grey marble gravestones in the corners of gardens, most of which had fresh flowers and even Christmas decorations on them. The family land is subdivided between the children, each receiving a portion on which to build a home if they want to stay. There is a strong sense of ‘family’ amongst these people and Tokuinformed us that the mass of people we saw on the plane would have been coming back for a family reunion – most families do this every two or three years.

Toku had visited London as part of a troop of Cook Islands Youth Dancers several years ago and performed at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. He was very into all types of music and sports, but especially rugby league. His coach, who has now returned to live on this island at the age of 40, used to be a star player for Wigan. Toku is now hoping he will be able to get a contract to play for an English Club – we suggested London Broncos but he hadn’t heard of them – just Wigan and Leeds. The walk only lasted an hour but we had found out lots of information about this island, as well as having a bit of much-needed exercise. Sitting on a coach all day, does not keep you fit.

We returned to the room for a picnic of wine and cheese on the balcony. Colin was snoozing and the walk this morning had inspired me to explore some more, so I wandered around the resort (looking into a few other rooms – the beachfront suites are about twice the size of our room with outside showers, but the rest seem very similar to ours – I didn’t find the honeymoon suite, obviously hidden away in some quiet corner) and ended up on the beach. There was no one else around, so I set off towards what Colin and I had named “Robinson Crusoe island” – although attached to the land, from the hotel it looked like an island in the distance, with waving palm trees and white sand. The beach around the hotel is white sands – some soft and fine, other parts minute broken shells that feel gritty to your feet. I wandered along through the shallows, the small waves tumbling diagonally towards the beach in very quick succession, until some way further up the cove, the beach became stony and a pebbly spit had formed out into the water. Picking my way across on the sandiest bits, I continued towards my goal. The beach kept changing from sandy to stony, back to sandy again. Near the hotel the back of the beach was protected from erosion by huge black boulders, caged in wire, to prevent the sand being taken out to sea. Further along, the back of the beach was lined with old palms and pines. Most of these were very tall and looked considerably battered. The sand had eroded away round some of the pine trees, leaving large grey trunks suspended on lots of thin knobbly roots, bent in all directions, searching for a hold. They didn’t look as if they could support the tree, and in fact, one enormous old tree had recently fallen over – the exposed roots could only have penetrated a very short way into the sand although the foliage was still green. I got almost to the end of the bay, but the rest of the way seemed stony, so I decided it was time to retrace my steps. Colin was awake when I returned, but not at all worried that I had been missing!

We played cards, went for pre-dinner drinks, came back and showered and changed (still not sure why, nobody else does) and went to eat. There was no buffet tonight in the main restaurant – perhaps there are not enough people here to support it – we think there’s only about 50 here at present (Toku told us the hotel would be full over Christmas, and the waitress said not many more people were arriving – so we will see who was right). So we ate yet again at Captain Andy’s – I had tuna fish again – with a different sweet sauce – hope tuna isn’t turning into Australian beef – and Colin chose pasta – for which he’s had withdrawal symptoms for some time now – a large bowl of fettucine with seafood and a rich creamy sauce – should keep him happy for a few days. After dinner we went to the Crab Races – within a circle of rope, lots of small hermit crabs with numbers painted on their backs (there was an activity last night to catch the crabs), are freed from a bucket and people bet on which number will cross the line first. NZ$2 a go. It was quite a laugh as we watched these poor little dark shelled crabs, racing for freedom – along with lots of tiny albino crabs, that must have been caught at the same time, but were not in the races – many of these sprinted for the door of the marquee, sensing which way was back to the sea and home. Colin was asked to blow the shell to start one of the races, but only managed a squeek – it’s much harder than it looks. The whole event only lasted about half an hour, and at the end all the crabs were returned to the sea. – probably to be caught again for the next race on Saturday!

We returned to the room, and fatally, switched on the television, and one of the “Lord of the Rings” films (the second I believe) was showing. We were hooked, watching for the scenery we had seen in New Zealand, and sure enough, there was the river, and the cliffs, and the mines – only fleeting glimpses, but we could say “we’ve been there”.

By then it was time for bed – we are getting very used to this relaxing time, I know it’s going to be like Thailand, very difficult to get into tour mode again, after a couple of weeks.